PHIL 836 Thomas Aquinas on the Divine Nature (Summa contra Gentiles I)
Using Bk I of the Summa contra Gentiles as its primary source, this course will begin with a discussion of Aquinas's much disputed purpose in writing the first three books of this work. It will then consider his views on the faith-reason relationship, and his effort to determine what philosophical argumentation can establish about the divine nature and attributes including his development of the via negativa, and analogical predication of certain names of God with positive content such as goodness, intellect, truth, will, freedom to create, love, life and happiness. An effort will be made to correlate what he says in this writing with what he says elsewhere about praeambula fidei.